New pictures of the south polar cap on Mars and a global view of the dust storm occurring there have been released by the imaging team for NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.
Marking the four-year anniversary of its arrival at Mars, Global Surveyor's camera took a wide-angle view of the Martian south polar region on Sept. 12, 2001.
Several dramatic dust storms that began a few months ago are also seen in the image. One is located near the Martian equator, and the other is shown northwest of the Ascraeus Mons volcano.
The images are available at these Web sites:
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/dust_9_01/
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/spolar_9_01
Mars Global Surveyor is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The camera system is operated by Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif.